"Do you actually think I'd be able to accomplish more as a very junior MP than I can from where I am right now?"
"Yes," he said simply.
"But I wouldn't have any seniority, wouldn't qualify for any of the choice committee chairmanships."
"And precisely which committees in the Lords are you sitting on at this moment?" he asked sardonically, and chuckled when she made a face at him. "Seriously, Cathy," he went on more earnestly, "you could scarcely accomplish less politically sitting in the Commons then you can as a peer who's been denied her seat in the Lords. And the house you sit in won't have any effect one way or the other on the types of influence you have outside official government channels. Besides, the Commons' seniority rules are a lot less ironclad. You might be surprised at the access to useful committee assignments which could be open to you. Especially if the Centrists decide to look for common ground with you."
"And they probably would, wouldn't they?" she mused aloud, her expression thoughtful. "If nothing else, they'd see me as a potential wedge to split New Kiev and the party leadership further away from the malcontents like me."
"At the very least," he agreed. "And let's be honest here. One reason that they'd see you as a potential wedge is because that's precisely what you would be. In fact, it's the reason you'd be there in the first place."
She glanced at him sharply, and he chuckled without humor.
"Come on, Cathy! We both know Jeremy taught you to be honest with yourself where your objectives and tactics are concerned. Don't you want to remove New Kiev and her cronies from control of the party?"
"And aren't you a Crown Loyalist who'd love to see the Liberals cripple themselves in internecine internal warfare?" she shot back.
"It wouldn't exactly break my heart," he acknowledged cheerfully enough. "But by the same token, since I've come to know you, I've actually been forced to admit that not all Liberals are goddamned idiots. Which, I might add, was not an easy thing for me to accept. I suppose present company is responsible for seducing me—you should pardon the expression—into recognizing the possibility that not all of them have overaged oatmeal for brains.
"However that may be," he went on with a slight smile as she stuck out her tongue at him, "I've come to the conclusion that I can live with a lot of the sorts of things you and Liberals like you believe in. We'll probably never agree on everything, but there's a lot to be said for a society where merit trumps bloodlines. I don't have a lot of use for most of the social-interventionist, lack-of-reality economic crap that comes along as part of the package with most Liberals, but then, neither do you, do you?"
"You know I don't."
"Well then." He shrugged. "As I see it, if you're able to influence the party into pursuing goals compatible with the ones I favor anyway, then there's no reason I shouldn't work with you—or even other Liberals. But as you suggested a few minutes ago, there's not much chance of New Kiev and her bunch climbing out of bed with that unmitigated bastard High Ridge anytime soon. So if I want to work with any Liberals, I have to try to put someone like you in charge of them." He grinned at her. "You see? Nothing but pure, unadulterated, calculating self-interest on my part."
"Sure it is." She snorted, then stood in uncharacteristic stillness for several heartbeats while she thought it over.
"This is all very fascinating, Anton," she said finally. "But even if this entire ambitious scenario you've mapped out for me were workable, it would still depend on High Ridge calling elections. Which means that however interesting the possibilities are, I can't do anything about them. Probably not for years, the way things are going right now."
"I agree that there's not much chance High Ridge is going to call a general election any sooner than he has to," Zilwicki agreed calmly. "But I've been doing a little quiet research. And it seems that the Member of Parliament for the Borough of High Threadmore right here in Landing has just been offered a very lucrative position with one of the major Solarian banking houses. If he accepts it, he'll have to relocate to the League. The only reason he hasn't already said yes is that he takes his responsibilities as a member of the old Liberal Party seriously, and he's extremely unhappy with the way New Kiev and the party leadership have decided to play fast and loose with their principles in the name of political advantage. According to my sources, which include the gentleman in question, he and his family could certainly use the additional income the new position would provide, but he feels he has a moral responsibility to himself and to his constituents to stay where he is and try to prevent things from getting still worse.
"Now, if he were to accept the banking job, he'd be required to resign his seat in Parliament. High Threadmore wouldn't like that, because a majority of the borough's voters are also members of the old Liberal Party, and they're no happier with their present party leadership than he is. But under the Constitution, his resignation would automatically trigger a special election to refill his seat within a maximum of two months. That's an absolute requirement, one not even High Ridge could prevent or defer, time of war or no time of war. And if you were to register as a candidate for his seat, and if he were to give you his enthusiastic endorsement and actively campaign for you, and if your campaign strategy emphasized the fact that you've renounced one of the most prestigious peerages in the entire Star Kingdom in order to seek election as a mere commoner as a matter of principle . . ."
He shrugged, and her eyes slowly widened as she stared at him.
Chapter Nine
"No."
Queen Elizabeth III looked into Honor's eyes and shook her head fiercely.
"Please, Elizabeth," Honor began. "Right now my presence is doing more harm than good. If I go home to—"
"You are home," Elizabeth interrupted sharply, her warm mahogany face hard, and the treecat on her shoulder flattened his ears in reaction to his person's anger. That anger wasn't directed at Honor, but that made it no weaker. Worse, Honor could taste it almost as clearly as Ariel could, and for just an instant she wished she had matching ears that she could flatten in response. The whimsical thought flickered briefly through her brain, then vanished, and she drew a lung-stretching breath before she spoke again, as calmly as she could.
"That wasn't what I meant," she said, then closed her mouth once more as Elizabeth waved one hand in a chopping-off gesture.
"I know it wasn't." The Queen grimaced and shook her head. "I didn't mean for it to sound that way, either," she went on a bit contritely. "But I don't apologize for the thought behind it. You're a Manticoran, Honor, and a peer of the realm, and you deserve one hell of a lot better than this!"
She gestured at the wall-mounted HD, and against her will, Honor followed the gesture to where Patrick DuCain and Minerva Prince, hosts of the weekly syndicated political talk show "Into the Fire" were grilling a panel of journalists in front of huge holograms of Honor's face . . . and White Haven's.
The sound was switched off, a small mercy for which Honor was profoundly grateful, but she didn't really have to hear it. She tried to remember who it was back on Old Terra who was supposed to have said that something was "déjà vu all over again." She couldn't, but that didn't matter either. She didn't have to recall names to know precisely how whoever had rendered that masterpiece of redundancy must have felt, because watching DuCain and Prince brought back agonizing memories of the vicious partisan confrontations which had followed the First Battle of Hancock. She'd been one of the focuses for those bruising exchanges, too, so she supposed she should be used to it by now. But she wasn't. No one could grow accustomed to it, she thought bitterly.
"What I may or may not deserve has very little bearing on what's actually happening, Elizabeth," she said, her voice still calm and level even as she felt the stiff tension in Nimitz's long, wiry body on her own shoulder. "Nor does it have any bearing on the damage being done while this goes on."
"Perhaps not," Elizabeth conceded. "But if you retire to Grayson now, they win. Worse, everyone will know they won. And besid
es," her voice dropped and her ramrod-straight spine seemed to sag ever so slightly, "it probably wouldn't make any difference, anyway."
Honor opened her mouth again, then closed it. Not because she was prepared to give up the argument, but because she was afraid Elizabeth was right.
* * *
Every insider in Parliament, Lords and Commons alike, recognized exactly what had been done to her, and it didn't matter at all. Hayes' initial column had been followed quickly by the first op-ed piece, and that first "respectable" commentary had been the polished, meticulously crafted opening salvo in a carefully planned campaign. It was the first picador's dart, placed with impeccable skill, and the fact that the High Ridge Government was an alliance of so many parties gave a disastrously broad base to the orchestrated attack. The Manticoran public was accustomed to vociferous exchanges between party organs and spokespeople, but this time the party lines were blurred. No, not blurred. The real problem was that the divisions were even clearer than usual . . . and that this time every single major party except the Centrists and Crown Loyalists was on the other side. The condemnation came from across the entire traditional political spectrum, and that gave it a dangerous degree of legitimacy in all too much of the public's eyes. Surely so many people of such diverse views would never agree on anything which wasn't self-evidently true!
That first column had appeared in the Landing Guardian, the flagship newsfax of the Manticoran Liberal Party, under the byline of Regina Clausel. Clausel had been a newsy for almost fifty T-years . . . and an operative of the Liberal Party for over thirty-five. She maintained her credentials as a reporter and ostensibly independent-minded political commentator, but she was recognized in professional media circles as one of the Liberals' primary front people. She was also widely respected in those same circles for her ability, despite the way she'd subordinated it to the requirements of her ideology. Effectiveness was far more important than intellectual integrity, after all, Honor thought bitterly.
What mattered in this case, however, was her sheer visibility. She was a regular on four different issue-oriented HD programs, her column appeared in eighteen major and scores of lesser 'faxes, and her informal, comfortable prose and calm affability before the cameras had captured a broad readership and viewership. Many of her readers weren't Liberals—indeed, a fair percentage were actually Centrists, who read her columns or watched her on HD because she seemed reassuring evidence that even someone one disagreed with politically could have a brain. Her well-crafted and presented arguments made even readers who disagreed with her think, and if one was inclined to agree with her already, they often seemed to sparkle with their own brand of brilliance.
She was also one of the very few political columnists outside the Centrist party who had not savaged Honor over her duels with Denver Summervale and Pavel Young. Honor wasn't certain why, since the Liberal Party was officially dedicated to stamping out the custom of dueling. That was one of the few planks of their formal platform with which she found herself in agreement, whatever her bloodthirsty reputation might be. The suppression of the genetic slave trade was another, but she felt even more strongly—on a personal level—about the Code Duello. If duels had never been legal, Paul would never have been killed . . . and Honor wouldn't have been forced to use the same custom as the only way she could punish the men who'd planned his death. The fact that she knew a predator part of her personality might find the code all too apt to her needs under certain circumstances was another reason she would have preferred to see it stamped out. She didn't like wondering if she could trust herself in that regard.
According to William Alexander's sources, the most probable reason for Clausel's silence on that occasion was actually quite simple: she'd hated the Young clan for decades. Much of that hatred apparently sprang from ideological antipathy, but there also seemed to be an intensely personal element to it. That must make her present alliance with the Conservative Association even more awkward for her than for most Liberals, but no one could have guessed it from how skillfully she'd played her assigned role.
She never once openly condemned either Honor or White Haven. Indeed, she spent over a third of her total word count castigating Hayes for the customary sleaziness of his regular "Tattler's Tidbits" column and another third pleading with their fellows of the press not to leap to judgment on the basis of such a suspect source. And then, having established her own professionalism, integrity, skepticism, and total sympathy for the sacrificial victims, she spent the final third of the column giving Hayes' sleaze the deadly tang of legitimacy.
Honor could remember the closing paragraphs of that dagger-edged column word for word, even now.
"It goes without saying that the private lives of any of this Kingdom's citizens, however prominent, ought to be just that: private. What transpires between two consenting adults is their business, and no one else's, and it would be well for all of us of the press to remember that as this story unfolds. Just as it is incumbent upon all of us to remember the highly questionable source of these initial, completely unconfirmed allegations.
"Yet at the same time, distasteful as any of us must find it, there are questions which must be asked. Unpleasant conjectures which must be examined, if only to refute them. We have made icons of our heroes. We have elevated them to the highest levels of our respect and admiration for their amply demonstrated courage and skill in the crucible of combat against the enemies of all we believe in and value. Whatever the final outcome of this story, it cannot in any way diminish the tremendous contributions made to the war against Havenite aggression by the man who commanded Eighth Fleet and brought the People's Navy to its knees, or by the woman whose superb courage and tactical skill have won her the nickname of 'the Salamander.'
"Yet true though that is, are courage and skill enough? What demands is it appropriate for us to place upon heroes whom we have also made political leaders and statesmen? Does the ability to excel in one arena transfer to excellence in another, completely different type of struggle? And when it comes to matters as fundamental as character, fidelity to one's sworn word, and loyalty to the important people in one's life, does heroism in war transfer to heroic stature as a human being?
"Most troubling, of course, will be those who insist that we may see the greater in the lesser. That in the personal choices and decisions of our lives, we see the true reflection of our public choices and positions. That as we succeed—or fail—against the measure of our inner, personal codes and values, so we reveal our ability to successfully bear—or falter under—the weight of our public responsibilities.
"And what of the question of judgment? What of the charges, which will inevitably be made, that any public figure, any statesman, who might have placed himself or herself in such a false position by such indiscretions has demonstrated a woeful lack of judgment which cannot be overlooked in one responsible for charting the policies and future of the Star Kingdom of Manticore? It is very early—far too early—for us to rush to decision on any of those troubling questions. Indeed, one is tempted to point out that it is really far too early even to ask such questions, for there is as yet no confirmation that the ugly rumors contain any shred of truth.
"And yet those questions are being asked, however quietly, however discreetly, in the backs of our minds. And at the end of the day, fair or not, reasonable or not, we must find some answer for them, if only the conclusion that they should never have been asked in the first place. For we are speaking of our leaders, of a man and woman venerated by all of us in time of war, whose judgment and whose ability to lead us in time of peace we have made critical to the prosperity and security of our Kingdom.
"Perhaps there is a lesson here. None of us is perfect, all of us have made mistakes, and even our heroes are but human. It is neither fair nor just to insist that anyone excel in all areas of human endeavor. That anyone be as capable in matters of state as he or she is in the harsh furnace of war. In the end, perhaps we have elevated our heroes too high, raised
them to a pinnacle no mere mortal should be expected to scale. And if, in the end, they have fallen from the heights like the Icarus of ancient legend, is the fault theirs, or is it ours?"
Clausel's column had been devastating less for what it said than for the ground it had prepared, and the columns which followed—written by Conservatives, by Progressives, by other Liberals, and by Independents personally committed to the Government for whatever reason—drove their roots deep into that well-tilled soil with a damning nonpartisan aura that was as convincing as it was false.
Honor had released her own statement, of course, and she knew William Alexander had used his own press contacts to do as much preemptive spadework as he could before the story broke, as well. She'd done some of her own, for that matter, and even appeared, not without a certain carefully concealed trepidation, on "Into the Fire" herself. The experience had not been one of the most enjoyable of her life.
Neither Prince, a lifelong Liberal, nor DuCain, a card-carrying Crown Loyalist, had ever attempted to conceal their own political affiliations. That was one of the things which made their program so widely watched. But for all their political differences, they respected one another, and they made a conscientious effort to extend that same respect to their guests and reserve their own polemics for their closing segment. But that didn't mean they refrained from hardhitting questions.
"I read your statement of the fifteenth with considerable interest, Your Grace," Prince had observed on camera. "I noted that you acknowledge a 'close personal and professional relationship' with Earl White Haven."